Continuing Bonds and Social Media in the Lives of Bereaved College Students

Grieving College Students Use of Social Media

“…This is important to note since approximately 35% of American undergraduate students and 25% of graduate students have experienced bereavement within the previous 24 months (Balk, Walker, & Baker, 2010;Smyth, Hockemeyer, Heron, Wonderlich, & Pennebaker, 2008;Varga, 2015;Walker, Hathcoat, & Noppe, 2012). College students are using social media sites to express their grief and seek grief support (Balk & Varga, 2017;Egnoto, Sirianni, Ortega, & Stefanone, 2014;Frost, 2014). Social media can help college students stay connected to loved ones they have lost by providing a space for them to talk directly with the deceased and memorialize them (Pennington, 2013).…”

“…However, while the majority of college students utilize social media as a means to express grief, cope with loss, and stay connected to the deceased, such use is not always the case. Findings from a bereavement study conducted on a college campus illustrate the alternative perspective students have of social media platforms and their roles in bereavement (Balk & Varga, 2017). The ways grieving college students use social media fall along a continuum that ranges from no use, to limited use, to vast use, also known as The Bereavement and Social Media Use Continuum.…”

“…The Bereavement and Social Media Use Continuum illustrates the degree to which college students utilize social media during bereavement (see Table 1). The degrees range from No Social Media Use, to Limited Social Media Use, to Vast Social Media Use (Balk & Varga, 2017). While it is assumed that college students are utilizing social media to regularly share their thoughts and feelings, this assumption is not always the case with grieving individuals.…”

‘And so she returned to the Eternal Source’: Continuing Bonds and the Figure of Dante’s Beatrice in C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed

“…Continuing bonds theory draws on research into religious traditions such as ancestor veneration in Japanese traditional religion, and explores the many different ways in which grievers maintain bonds with the deceased – whether through ancestor veneration, experiences involving sensing (or seeming to sense) the presence of the dead, visiting the person’s grave and talking to them, looking through family photo albums, or maintaining Facebook pages on behalf of the deceased (see e.g. Balk and Varga, 2018; Irwin, 2018). Study of religious practice has been important to continuing bonds theory, and (as we shall see) some scholars interested in continuing bonds have suggested that non‐Christian religious traditions are the primary loci of continuing bonds (Klass and Goss, 1999; Walter, 2018).…”

College Faculty Member Grief Over Deaths of Current and Former Students

“…There is a rich literature on college student grief (e.g., Balk, 2001Balk, , 2011Balk & Varga, 2018;Cousins, Servaty-Seib, & Lockman, 2017;Cupit et al, 2016). It focuses on developmental issues of bereaved undergraduates in the context of the social and institutional ecologies for undergraduates at institutions of higher learning.…”